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Crossings and Cooties

Jack woke up a little earlier than Casey from naptime today so we had a little time to kill, just Jack and I.

He played with his trains for a little bit and I tried to read a book. He interrupted me every 5 seconds with a new question or to inform me that the coaches were ready for passengers. I quickly gave up on the reading. He has a bunch of wooden signs to go with his train set – Stop Sign, Do Not Enter, etc. For a long time, the Do Not Enter sign was his favorite one. He used to ask me over and over what it meant and any time we saw one on the street, he would get excited about it. Apparently, he has a new favorite. He saw a Railroad Crossing sign at a friend’s house a few days ago and today he told me he was “just going to wait for it.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he said he was going to wait for Santa to bring it for Christmas.

I’m actually glad that he thought of Santa on his own. Lately when he tells me that he wants a new toy, I tell him that he should ask Santa in a few months. His response has been, “No, we can just go to the store and get one.” He says it in a tone that implies I am completely ridiculous for asking Santa when it would be much quicker to just go to a store.

Anyway, a few seconds after telling me he was going to wait for the railroad crossing sign, he realized that he had an almost life-size one standing in the corner. It’s a piggy bank that makes train noises when you insert coins. I told him that we shouldn’t put any money in it right now because the noise might wake Casey. It’s really loud. Jack didn’t take so well to this idea. He dramatically drove one of his trains off the track and onto the floor. He starting crying… because the trains obviously needed that signal or the railways would just be mayhem. We eventually compromised and shut the door to the room so he could make the signal noise without waking Casey. All was right on the Island of Sodor again.

Eventually we moved on to playing the Cootie Bug game. When Jack got games for his birthday, I was looking forward to playing them with him. Then I actually tried to play with him. He’s not much for the rules. I think I explained to him dozens of times that it’s not where the die lands but the number on the top. We played two games of Cootie and he finally figured it out…and beat me both times fair and square! Anyway, the best part of the whole game was that he kept saying we need to “roll the dough” instead of “roll the dice.”